In the early 30's there was little use for what some referred to as "the ugly white sand" of the future Panama City Beach. Vast expanses of undeveloped land were obviously only for farming and these sandy acres had little chance of producing anything worth harvesting. Gideon Thomas, however, saw more to this real estate than its critics. Though others made numerous attempts to convince Thomas that his efforts to harvest anything edible in this area were futile, he would simply respond, “I'm not attempting to grow vegetables here I'm going to grow people." Grow people he did.